Birth of a Blog, Part 2: The Moral Compass

I warned my guru that a recent email to her probably would become a blog post.

I've been incubatory (if that's a word) this winter. Some thoughts wanted thinking. And -- if you give a mouse a cookie -- they demanded a blog.

This is my third blog. I maintained Dressed in Yella to keep the family posted on the girls. Before that, I kept a robust online "diary," before "blog" was even a word. It was totally anonymous and sorta shady and I would have died if any reader had met me on the street. And, no, you can't see it, because the Internet ate it by accident a few months ago, which was probably just as well.

Enter Incarnation #3.  I feel like I've found a) a voice, and b) something to say. Oooh, and both at the same time!

Plus, the world has changed. Keeping your children's photos off Facebook? Some kindly relation is posting and tagging. Downplaying your political leanings? Some well-meant friend is sharing and liking.  Even the app store on my phone requires my credit-card-linked identity before I can write a dang review.  Short of becoming a true hacker, which I'm too lazy to do, or completely checking out from online society, islandhood is no longer practical.

This is probably good for me. I've always belonged to the "nod and smile" school. You do your thing, I'll do my thing, and we'll all just go-along-to-get-along.

But in the wake of November's election, the smile feels forced and the nod feels stiff. Regardless of whether you think a) the country's headed for facism in a pizza box, or b) the second coming of Novus Ordo Seclorum is at hand, I think we may all agree that -- remember about the children? -- home-based moral guidance has become imperative.

The great privilege of parenting in America is raising your children as you see fit.  The older I get, the more strongly I believe that we're never more than a generation away from losing our foundations: social, political, lingual, religious, and/or moral.  So I've decided to up my game on the conscious, mindful, thoughtful, respectful, gentle, and unapologetic indoctrination of my children to my moral views, as expressed in a clearly-articulated family mission.

'Cause this is all I'm doing right now, and, uh, I don't like to do things half-baked.

My children may not always embrace my views.  I hope they will make their own considered decisions in time. I hope I am teaching them how to make considered decisions. If I do nothing else for them, I want to give my children a place to which they can look back and say, "I came from there."

In service to that goal, this blog plants its flag.

Well . . . and there may be a few crafts and checklists and travel itineraries and woodlore notes and recipes and RV camping tips along the way.